


A thief in a house of gold

by ThatOneGirlBehindYou



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Behind the Scenes, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:43:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5695210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatOneGirlBehindYou/pseuds/ThatOneGirlBehindYou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bakura has been scheming for three thousand years, give or take a few. He didn´t plan on modern life being so comfortable, on impossibly naive hosts and especially not on scantily clad young men with <i>very</i> absorbing eyes, how was he supposed to know?</p>
<p>Little behind the scenes moments that show the Bakura he never actually lets us see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A thief in a house of gold

**Author's Note:**

> Look I don´t know ok? I´m as surprised by this as you are if you follow me regularly, I thought I was out of this fandom but it just keeps pulling me in, so I gave up.

The pharaoh's men were screaming. 

The Dark God roared, and the pharaoh played with powers he couldn't even begin to comprehend. As the terrible light faded, taking with it both God and King, the battlefield was left in a deep silence.

Dozens of men lay dead, their souls exhausted in their efforts to protect their ungrateful tyrant, but the priests still stood.

Bakura stared up at his Diabound, weakened and unprotected by the master they'd given everything to summon, and realized with a heavy heart that he would never win.

Not in this life.

So he did the only thing he could, the only thing that might work, because there was still so much to do, so many voices demanding revenge from the depths of his memory, and he wasn't about to give up when he'd been so close; Bakura had always been patient.

The Millenium Ring shone like the Sun and Bakura felt pain beyond any other he had ever experienced, and then, nothing.

His last conscious thought was that, for a thief, a prison made of gold was nothing to scoff at.

-

The next three thousand years ran by both draggingly slow and in a blink.

Bakura felt each and every person that handled the Ring, but none of their souls were strong enough to awaken his will.

Then Ryou pulled the damned thing out of a garish gift box, and Bakura felt his touch as though the falls of the Nile were pounding directly on his chest.

-

The kid was lonely, that much was clear, and Bakura _did_ feel a stab of guilt whenever he commanded his friends' souls to pawn off in his games, but he needed the power, and stealing again made him feel alive in a way nothing else did.

-

"You're not very nice, are you?" Was the first thing Ryou said to him, when his consciousness became strong enough that Bakura's presence didn't snuff it out like a candle whenever he took over.

It was not an accusation, more like a mildly interested remark, as if Ryou had long since accepted that this was Bakura's nature, and the thief found it amusing, that Ryou was a being of light yet had these grey zones in his moral code.

-

The pharaoh was sitting five fucking chairs away from him dressed in a stupid high school uniform, playing cards and completely unaware of his presence; Bakura would have found the absurdity of it all hilarious, but he was too busy having a panic attack in the depths of Ryou's mind, because he still didn't have the rest of the Items. No way to wake Zorc again. _Nothing_.

He had to act though, so he pulled the pharaoh and his new priests into a shadow game. 

Later he'd admit that perhaps it was not the best way to remain inconspicuous, but whatever, he was close to winning, and he had fun

-

"Why do you hate Yugi so much?" His host asked at some point before they got to Pegasus' castle. Bakura had to pause and remember Yugi was the name of the twerp that hosted the pharaoh in this life.

"It's a long story." He conceded and he could feel Ryou's shock at actually receiving an answer. 

"I don't got much to do in here." Ryou muttered nonchalantly, as if it wasn't Bakura's fault that he was confined to the back of his own mind while a revengeful spirit did his best to fuck up the world.

However, it was the first time someone didn't outright judge him for his hatred of the pharaoh, and though Bakura didn't tell his story then, he remembered the occasion fondly. Maybe Ryou was the part of him that died all those years ago, and he was the empty husk that sat in an alley and slept to the screams of the sacrificed villagers.

-

Bakura was way too old to remember being a teenager, but Ra, hormones were very distracting.

He remembered the women from his time, they were beautiful and fierce and many of them had given him a run for his salt when it came to stealing.  
Girls today were a different sort. No less beautiful or fierce, only different. Progress had made them softer in some aspects, and jaded in others.

In any case, he hadn't the time for company, so he rutted into his palm every few nights, nothing in his mind but the mere feeling of the act, and didn't think further of it. 

-

The new priests weren't as pompous or insufferable as the old ones.

They did have a _lot_ to say about friendship, but he gave them somewhat of a pass because they always made sure to include his host, and cared for him an awful lot for someone who trapped them into a tabletop game and threatened to consume their souls. Granted, it hadn't been Ryou's fault a all, but another thing these priests weren't was sharp.

He would never grow to like them, but they valued his host nearly as much as he did, and he respected them for that.

Except for the reincarnation of Akhenaden's horrible brat. He was just as pompous, insufferable, and obsessed with his dragon as the last time. Fuck that guy.

-

Speaking of Akhenaden, his Item's new wielder was much more likable than him. At least he had a sense of humor, and he liked shadow games and taking people's souls an awful lot, which Bakura could relate to.

It was almost a shame to kill him.

Apparently Pegasus had also bought the idea that his Millenium Item would grant him a wish; if he had bothered to actually learn the history of the damned thing, he'd have known the Items had a horrible sense of humor.

Well, he got to be with his wife, one way or another, so the guy couldn't complain.

-

"Do something!" Ryou begged in their shared mindspace. Bakura grunted.

"I don't really care for the vessel." He replied. "I'm already inside the puzzle, I'll find what I need soon enough and then the only thing missing will be the Items. Not having him in the way actually helps a lot."

"He's our friend, Bakura!" His host had the gall to look angry at him. It was an interesting sight, made him look like his darker self.

He didn't dignify that absurdity with an answer, but Ryou was anguished and about to work himself into a panic, so he made his way into the gameshop in time to witness the last part of the dice game.

"I have your back until you manage to get the rest of the Millenium Items" Bakura said, and he smirked at his choice of words, after all no one else could stab that back if he was the first in line, he'd made sure of it.

-

He felt the pull of a new Millenium item mere minutes before Kaiba officially announced his stupid tournament, and his insides turned into an excited bird.

There wasn't much to do at first, mostly following the pharaoh around. He observed the others too. Joey was beginning to show his true potential as a duelist, and the others had to struggle to keep him grounded, but it was entertaining.

Perhaps that was what doomed the priests of old, they were all servants to the pharaoh, but they didn't truly care for one another.

When the thought crossed his head, he scoffed; either he was growing soft, or Téa was projecting some sort of subliminal message in her lectures about friendship.

He lost track of the Item he felt almost immediately -the wielder surely had a way to conceal their presence- but Bakura had little to no time for bitterness, because there was yet another Item in the city, and it was coming straight towards him.

Then his eyes landed on the man that wielded the Millenium Rod and he had time for little else.

-

"I'm going to kill the pharaoh" Marik said, and Bakura nodded, sticking to his part. This man needed to believe he had him in his grasp.

"I can help you. With one condition." Bakura replied, and gestured to the Item in Marik's brown hand. "I need the Millenium Items."

Marik's eyes narrowed. Their color like that of the sunrise seen from the top of a dune reminded Bakura of something, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what. 

"What if I don't want you to have them? You could be unworthy of them for all I know." He said, suspicious. The thief was used to it enough to recognize it.

"Then you will find out just how much trouble I can get you in." Bakura couldn't help the smirk that took over his face. "You're a good little boy, the pharaoh would be proud of you for distrusting me. After all..." He made a pause both for effect and to enjoy the way Marik's features tensed in distaste at the mockery. "It's because of me that he's in that puzzle."

That interaction cemented the rest of their relationship.

Marik suspected him as much as he respected him, despite the spirit's abrasive nature that managed to push his every button.

Bakura just enjoyed watching him squirm. It was good for a laugh, but it also served another purpose. Marik was a physical reminder that the pharaoh's cruelty echoed as far as three thousand years into the future, that his words still had the power to cripple lives and that he needed to be stopped.

He wouldn't allow anyone else to suffer like he and Marik did.

In the meanwhile, he dug a knife into his arm and delighted in the way Marik's eyes widened in shock.

-

He had to give it to Kaiba, Slifer's hologram looked exactly like the original, especially when it looked like it was about to eat him on the spot.  
Hell, he thought he even smelt the foul breath of the damned beast.

"I have a plan to save you." Marik spoke in his mind. Bakura smirked even as he shot a sideways look to the corporeal Marik watching his duel with a mask of innocent interest in his face.

In his mind Marik showed his true self, and he looked beautiful and fierce; Bakura felt the thrill of a robbery just by seeing the real treasure while every other fool watched on the dull persona that's his cover.

In the end though, he couldn't do it.

Ryou didn't even cower before the dragon, his injury and confusion drained the entirety of his attention.

"It hurts so much..." Ryou whimpered in his mind. He knew his friends couldn't help him, he could hear Marik's henchman pretending to be him and mocking the pharaoh to coerce him into attacking. He aimed a last lingering look of sadness at Bakura, and the spirit remembered the way his people looked as the soldiers slayed them.

He took over even though he knew it would prompt Slifer into attacking, even though it would probably shatter his alliance with Marik. Ryou had given him too much and he wouldn't correspond by leaving when he needed him.

Marik's presence leaving his side made him cold enough that he didn't feel the all-engulfing fire.

-

Ryou's body needed its rest, so Bakura slept silently on the Ring as well. He'd call out to his host when Ryou was in a better state, and he used his free time to think long and hard.

For many centuries he'd had no doubt about the course of his fate. He'd been born to be the last survivor of Kul Elna, the God of Justice had planted him in the middle of a life of hardships to forge his will into iron so that one day he'd be strong enough to overthrow the tyrannical rule of Akhenamkhanen's line. He had no other purpose than righting the wrongs of the kings, and he'd been so close to delivering that he'd almost felt the promised peace.

This time around, he wasn't as sure.

Modern life certainly was a dream compared to his original time, and there was so much a person like him could do without being repudiated, sometimes Bakura found himself thinking of mundane things, getting a job, finding a person... In his past life everything had been a step towards his goal.

Now, he'd found in Ryou a part of himself that he'd thought dead so long ago, and no matter how hard he denied it, he'd begun to feel protective towards his host, which was a bit troublesome since he was actually his host's biggest problem.

And then there was his partner in crime.

Back then Bakura worked alone most of the times, only taking people along when he needed bodies to send forward and test for a specially tricky trap. How ironic that Marik had done the same to him and he never saw it coming.

He woke up when Marik -who else- placed the Millenium Ring over his pillow, and the intensity of his gaze burned even when filtered through Téa's softer eyes.

"What do you want." He grunted out.

"He's going to kill Odion." Marik said with tired finality.

"Who's going to kill who?" Bakura felt one of his eyebrows climbing up on his forehead.

"My brother." Marik said. Téa's eyes hardened in fear, an expression Bakura had seen many times in her, but never in him. "I need you."

And really, Bakura should've tell him to go fuck himself and gotten back to sleep, but he was on his feet in a moment. The thought that his previous partners in crime probably hadn't been as forgiving of him briefly crossed his mind, but he dismissed it in the face of the other's urgency.

Marik left Téa's body behind and latched his presence to Bakura; he felt Ryou reacting curiously to the new presence in their shared space.

"Ignore him." He told his host. "He's just a dick, but we need to save his brother apparently."

Ryou's ghostly eyes are digging into him, but he didn't acknowledge the guy, so Ryou turned to Marik again.

"I don't know who you are, but you must be very persuasive." Said Ryou. "It took me months before he deigned giving me the time of the day." And he vanished in the depths of his soul room without another word.

Marik had the grace to pretend he ignored the words, but given that at the moment he was pretty much an incorporeal presence made of will and emotions, Bakura could feel the turmoil brewing inside him. There was gratefulness and suspicion and fear, but mostly he was flustered, and it helped Bakura add a bit of confidence to his strut.

It turned out his trusted henchman was actually his brother, which wasn't much of a surprise when considering how paranoid Marik really was, Bakura doubted the man actually trusted anyone but his siblings.

What _did_ come as somewhat of a shock was that apparently Marik had developed a split personality that was batshit insane. Really, Bakura could respect a little thirst for vengeance, but this guy was in it just for the chaos of it, and that just wouldn't do.

Marik's voice in his mind and his presence by his side were more than a bit distracting when trying to defeat this cheating bastard, but he managed pretty well, if he did say so himself.

He just wasn't ready for Ra, but who ever was ready for the Sun God raining holy fire on you? Honestly.

-

For all that he liked sending people into the shadows, Bakura had never actually been in them as a prisoner. He'd have reconsidered his posture towards using eternal darkness as punishment, but to be honest the pharaoh deserved that and more. 

In any case, he was here only because Marik's split personality had sent him, and Marik wouldn't have developed the psycho if his father hadn't used his back as an etch and sketch, which was a direct consequence of the pharaoh existing. So yeah, the pharaoh deserved the shadows. Bakura? Not so much.

He floated around for an eternity, and the shadows chose to present him with his village's massacre every time, because irony was a bitch. Every now and then he heard the faint echo of Ryou's screams, of Marik calling his name, and those irritated and confused him the most because of their personal nature.

-

Ryou's touch was like cool water running over burnt skin, but the boy felt even more guarded than before.

"What happened?" Bakura asked, searching the body for injuries and finding none but the one he'd inflicted himself.

"I have no idea." Ryou sighed with an air of resignation. "But I just saw Marik talking to Yugi and the guys. Wasn't he a bad guy?"

Bakura laughed. If anyone has ever been more suited to his revenge than him, it was the tombkeeper. He wasn't a bad guy, he was _the_ bad guy. Bakura could only imagine what glorious form his Ka would take.

Ryou lent him control of his body without further questioning, and Bakura tore his way through the blimp.

It was the sister that noticed him first. Bakura is delighted to see that she was as beautiful as her brother, even when she was a blizzard where he was a tropical storm.

"Marik." She said softly, and now the big one was looking at Bakura too. He nodded respectfully, so he must have heard of the whole 'got sent to the shadow realm so that your sister had time to hide your comatose ass'.

Marik's back stiffened, and he remained looking forward until his brother laid a hand on his shoulder.

When he turned his eyes hit Bakura like a truck, the faint ghost his memory had conjured during his stay in the shadows paled in comparison to the real thing.

He barely registered Marik's siblings leaving the room, busy as he was making his way towards him without tripping. His feet stopped abruptly an arm's length away from him. Malik sighed.

"I know you must be pretty angry at me right now, I'm sor-" Marik stopped abruptly when Bakura lifted a hand, and his suspicion turned to confusion when the pale appendage was laid softly on his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

Bakura smirked. "And here I was thinking you were smart. Thank the gods you're pretty at least." At his words, all that ridiculous regret and peacefulness melted away from Marik's face, and the glorious sunrise eyes filled with fire again.

"So you're not good at card games, staying locked, OR being grateful after being let out." Marik teased, rolling his eyes. "What _are_ you good for, really?"

Bakura's grip on his shoulder tightened. "Stealing things." He said a mere second before he pulled. His free hand went to cup Marik's cheek, and he dove in. Malik stiffened under his touch, and Bakura stopped his approach an inch from the other's lips, feeling his own curving into a teasing smile. "Scared?"

Marik's brow furrowed and Bakura felt him forcing himself to relax. "Bored actually." His breath fanned over Bakura's lips, warm and inviting and really, there had been a time when Bakura would've outright laughed at the thought of stealing a kiss, but that guy hadn't known much about life anyways.

-

He played his last game with all the intensity deserved by a match that had been brewing for three thousand years, but his mind harbored a different kind of storm.

"You could still back out of this." Ryou spoke in his ear. "Please."

"This is the reason I've survived this long." Bakura snarled, but he couldn't tell who he was angry at.

"What about me? What about him?" Ryou tried again. Bakura barked a command to shut him up because he knew perfectly well what he was giving up in exchange for an afterlife of eternal punishment, thank you very much.

Still, he played. It was the only thing he knew how to do.

-

Waking up without Bakura felt like being hungover. Ryou tested his body and mind and found them all his and incredibly _lonely_.

For a week or two, Ryou couldn't look Yugi in the eye, only agreeing mutely to traveling to Egypt with them, he owed it to Bakura to be there when it happened. The boy eventually caught up, and cornered him at school, the day before they were set to leave.

"Listen Ryou, I understand wha-" He started.

"But you don't." Ryou cut him up; he had no idea he could sound that cold. "What good are second chances, if you just repeat yourself? Yugi, your other you, whoever he is or was or whatever, he didn't care at all." He said. "He got into this mess because he never questioned those before him-"

"Bakura tried to kill us all!" Yugi exclaimed. Well, the other Yugi.

"So did like half the people you know!" Ryou responded in kind. "You were good enough to reach out to goddamned Seto Kaiba, but you couldn't be bothered with him!"

Ryou felt tears beginning to form at the corners of his eyes. He hadn't been truly alone in years.

"Ryou, Bakura was beyond reason, what he did to my Father's body was simply unforgivable." The other Yugi insisted with a frown.

"It must be very easy to worry about the dignity of a corpse when you don't have to worry when your next meal will be. Or when you're not, you know, stranded in a village full of them." Ryou countered, but he was getting tired. He had the fire, but if Bakura had failed what hope did he have of succeeding here? "He could still smell the rot, you know? He forgot his mother's face, but the smell of the dead still woke him up at night."

The other Yugi looked like the breath had been punched out of him.

"I..."

"You had other things to think about, back then." Ryou conceded. "But you could have reached out in this life. You could have understood. And now he's gone."

"Ryou-"

He shook his head.

"I can't. Not right now." And he turned to leave.

"Will you still come with us?" The real Yugi, the real one, had come back. Ryou turned to give him a small smile.

"I have to be there just as much as you do."

"I'm sorry Ryou."

-

Marik wouldn't stop staring at him, and Ryou was convinced he'd implode if he kept it up. He had taken one look at the other guy's face and all the memories had flooded back in.

There had been _a lot_ of Marik in Bakura's thoughts during his last weeks, and more than a fair share of it hadn't been exactly decent.

He sold it to the others as being seasick, and spent the trip locked in his room.

Unfortunately, Marik wasn't the kind to be detained by a mere door.

"What are you doing here?" Ryou asked when he turned around from the window and found Marik standing an inch from him. The shock thankfully helped disperse the awkwardness for a moment.

"I need a lock of your hair." Marik answered like it was a perfectly normal thing to say.

At Ryou's blank stare, he lifted his left hand, and Ryou jumped when he recognized the shape of the Millenium Ring.

"Where did you get that?!"

Marik shrugged. "I stole it." He took hold of Ryou's wrist with far too much familiarity, and dragged him out to the couch. "I switched one of the links with one I made. I need a lock of your hair, you're the body he inhabited for the last years." He showed the piece of gold resting innocuously on his brown palm.

"Won't that affect the ritual to return the Pharaoh?" Ryou frowned. Marik's teeth were unnervingly white when he smirked.

"I don't really care."

Ryou found himself smiling back and reaching for his nape.

-

Bakura opened his eyes. The afterlife felt a lot less special and involved a lot less hellfire than he'd expected.

It actually just felt a lot like lying naked on cold rock.

He blinked.

It felt _exactly_ like lying naked on cold rock.

"How do you feel?" Ryou's voice came from his right.

"Get off the fucking ground already will you?" Marik's came from his left.

Bakura smirked and allowed himself to close his eyes again, exhaling with relief.

"You couldn't let me rest in peace for a fucking week, could you, Ishtar? You had to go kidnap my host."

Ryou's laugh helped drive away the remnants of the shadows, and the warmth of Marik's hand on his bare shoulder was what finally convinced him that he was... Alive.

And this time, his life is his to waste as he likes.


End file.
